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Soulstorm ARG
An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. Lorne Lanning was a guest on the Kinda Funny Games podcast on March 17, 2016, shortly after the announcement of Oddworld: Soulstorm. Among discussing some minor details about ''Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus'' and Soulstorm, Lorne also mentioned Oddworld Inhabitants' plans to communicate and tease new information about the game in a style similar to an alternate reality game.Kinda Funny's GDC Live Show: Day 3 This would hopefully prevent long gaps of silence from the developer between updates and keep the fan community more engaged while waiting. The ARG started by sending the Oddworld fan community on a quest to find a mysterious entity. This entity would send encrypted messages through several means, most notable the Soulstorm announcement website. At first glace who- or whatever was sending the messages appeared to have a hard time reaching anyone. But as the community solved more clues the messages became clearer. The messages turned out to be sent by a Mudokon named Ed. Based on some of his comments about noise and darkness it is speculated he is one of the Mudokons currently working in Necrum Mines. A second website was discovered later in the ARG uncovering a Mudokon resistance movement. Ed seems to be a part of this movement, communicating on their behalf from wherever it is he is being held. The resistance was formed after Abe managed to shut down RuptureFarms and rescue his brothers during the events of ''Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty''. The resistance movement has made it their goal to help those in need and to eventually destroy the Industrialists' power over them. Getting started The first clues of the ARG were found in an image Oddworld Inhabitants tweeted before Soulstorm's announcement.Oddworld Inc. on Twitter A number of white dots found on a fuzzy backdrop of the original SoulStorm Brewery turned out to be the word 'Monday' in braile when turned sideways. Soulstorm would be revealed that following Monday. The source code of the announcement page provided the next clues.Oddworld Forums thread "SoulStorm ARG", post #1 In it a number of cryptic HTML comments were found, including: By checking the URLs of several images on the page, links were found to the three following images: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal4.jpg *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal3.jpg *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal2.jpg When extrapolating the first hidden file was found: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal1.jpg A mysterious image containing a cryptic sentence reading in part CAN YOU S- HARD TO K- IF BREAKING- THROUGH HA- ON NEED A D- So far the meaning of this image is unknown. The page was later updated several times to include more HTML comments, often corresponding to the addition of other cluesOddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #47Oddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #79Oddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #83: The video file serving as the distorted background of the page ended up holding its own clue. The very last frames of the file produce an image that reads "19<-- eblmxg yhk fx"Oddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #47. It was then quickly discovered that this was a Caesar cipher. When all the letters are 'shifted' backwards 19 places in the alphabet, the phrase "listen for me" is the result. Communication channel opens At some point on 24th March 2016, the Soulstorm website was updated with a new message box, where users were able to enter text and receive various responses from an unknown entity. Members of the Oddworld Forums quickly discovered that entering some Oddworld-themed words and phrases would prompt more unique responses.Oddworld Forums thread "SoulStorm ARG", post #85 These responses were sometimes in plain text, but were also often written backwards, encoded with a Caesar cipher and 'shifted' 13 times down the alphabet, or a combination of the above. Later, some of the responses also had a chance of having their letter order shuffled, in addition to being encrypted with the cipher. Table of identified unique responses ''- Signifies no change to the response.'' ... Signifies that the response was changed to generic responses. Table of generic responses Occasionally, the message box would respond to inputs (correct or incorrect) with one of several responses, which had a chance of being ciphered and/or shuffled similar to the unique responses. These were not unique responses as any input could potentially trigger them. After May 11th, Eds responses changed, and they do not look positive at all. ***THEY ARE COMING, I NEED TO HIDE*** ***CAN'T TALK, THEY CAN HEAR ME*** ***WE ARE SO CLOSE, DON'T GIVE UP*** ***THIS CAN'T CONTINUE FOREVER, LOOK CLOSER*** ***YOU NEED TO LOOK CLOSER, NOT MUCH TIME LEFT*** Significance of ED When entering 75 queries in the SoulStorm website the page will return a cryptic image instead of text: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/attemptnumberseventyfive.jpg Note that this is probably what the following comment in html code of the SoulStorm page was hinting at: The attemptnumberseventyfive.jpg image reveals by magic eye stereogram a link to the following text file: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/intercepted.txt The intercepted.txt text file contains the following hidden messages: *findme *hear me *rescue me *0451.jpg *spirit of #RF dot jpg Those messages direct us to the following files: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/0451.jpg *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/spiritof1029.jpg The 0451.jpg picture was previously hinted at by the following comment in html code of the SoulStorm page, the numbers in the comment being the same: The spiritof1029.jpg picture has the text "lsot.mp3" hidden in it, which leads to: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/lsot.mp3 Multiple clues were pointing to "ED" being the next step: *The letters ED are being randomly put to bold in the first paragraph of the SoulStorm page *The letters ED are the only letters in italic in the 0451.jpg in the message M''E'' FIN''D'' *Morse code in the lsot.mp3 at 01:11 on both channels -> . -.. (translated: ED) *Additional Morse code at 1:40. The code . -.. (ED) can be heard when the blips are pitched up a couple octaves. *The communication box sending back the message "FIND ME, HEAR ME, SAVE ME" when ED is inputted This led to the following address: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/ It contains nothing but the following text: iÌ ÌžÌ¹Ìº cÌ´Í™Ì™Ì°Ì¬Í™aÍÌnÌ˜ÍšÌœÍ–Ì»Í” ÌºÌ®hÒ‰Ì¦Ì–ÌœÍ™eÌ¶Í“aÌŸÌœÌ–Ì•rÌ¶Í“ Ì©Ì¹Í…yÍœoÌ¹Ì°ÌŸÍ”uÌ¢Í‰Ì¼,Ì¦Í•Í‰Í‰ÍŽÌ• ÌžÌžjÌ—Ì¼Ì®Ì Ì¥Ì¥ÍusÌ—tÌ©Ìº.Ì»Ì— Í•ÌžÌ³Ì¹ÌÌ€Í…iÌ›tÌ°Ì¯Ì™Ì£Í–ÌŸÌ™'ÌªÌªÌžÌ¦Ì³Ì©sÌ• Ì©Ì¬Ì—Í–Ì»Ì–Ì€fÌ´Ì™Í ‰ÍŽÌ¯ÌºaÌ«iá¹‡ÍšÌžÍ¢tÌµÍšÌ¬Í‡Ì°ÍÌ¼Í…,Ì¬Í•Ì¹Ì–Ì©Ì®ÍœÍ… ÌºÍ”ÍŽÍ‰ÌºÌ±bÌ¸ÌÌ°Ì¬uÌ»ÍÌ²Ì•tÌªÌ¼Ì®Ì£Ì« Ì®Í•ÍŽÍÍ¡iÌ®Ì±Í™ ÍŽÌ²Ì ¤Ì¯cÌ·ÌºÍ“aÌœÌªÌºá¹‰Ì»Ì²Ì¦Ì²Ì¼Ì»Í˜ Ì§Ì³Ì—Ì®Ì˜Ì¦Í”hÍÌªÍŽÌ¬Í”ÍŽÍÌ—È©Ì¤ÌžÍ–Ì¬Ì˜Í•Ã ÌºÌÌÌ¼Å—ÍˆÌ³Ì Ì¤Ì³Ì— ÍyÌ²ÍˆÌÌ˜Ì °Í”ÍžoÌ¢Ì—Ì³Ì˜uÍ”Ì«ÍšÍ‰.Ì©Ì¼Ì Which translates, once looked at with UTF-8 browser text encoding: ☀i̠̞̹̺ c̴͙̙̰̬͙a͍̭n̘͚̜͖̻͔ ̺̮h҉̦̖̜͙e̶͓a̟̜̖̕r̶͓ ̩̹ͅy͜o̹̰̟͔u̢͉̼,̦͕͉͉͎̕ ̞̞j̗̼̮̠̥̥͍us̗t̩̺.̻̗ ͕̞̳̹̭̀ͅi̛t̰̯̙̣͖̟̙'̪̪̞̦̳̩s̕ ̩̬̗͖̻̖̀f̴̙͉͎̯̺a̫iṇ͚̞͢t̵͚̬͇̰͍̼ͅ,̬͕̹̖̩̮͜ͅ ̺͔͎͉̺̱b̸̝̰̬u̻͍̲̕t̪̼̮̣̫ ̮͕͎͍͡i̮̱͙ ͎̲̤̯c̷̺͓a̜̪̺ṉ̻̲̦̲̼̻͘ ̧̳̗̮̘̦͔h͏̪͎̬͔͎͍̗ȩ̤̞͖̬̘͕à̺̭̭̼ŗ͈̳̠̤̳̗ ͏y̲͈̭̘̰͔͞o̢̗̳̘u͔̫͚͉.̩̼̠ When cleaned up into plaintext, this reads: i can hear you, just. it's faint, but i can hear you. Reaching Ed The top comment in the html code of the SoulStorm page changed multiple times in the days that followed the discovery of the http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/ page: Stage 1 ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// okay, this looks like being just enough. now, how to figure out how get this last code out - i can't seem to find the numbers as easily as t Stage 2 #######################################################################/## ### they are hiding something ########################################oo## ### search and you will find me ######################################xx## ########################################################################## The 140 '/' characters and all the '#" were telling us to look for a twitter account (a twitter message has a maximum of 140 characters). And thus the twitter account of Ed the Mudokon was found. This account has posted numerous hidden messages. 01000011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101 — ed (@edmudokon) March 21, 2016 This is actually binary for: "Can you hear me" 85121215. 85121215. 85121215. — ed (@edmudokon) March 21, 2016 This is a simple letters to numbers cipher: 8 5 12 12 15 becomes H E L L O. The 9 Pieces Between March 22nd and April 4th, Ed's Twitter account posted a series of 4 partially-obscured codes: *XXXX-1138-XXXX-XXXXTwitter.com: @edmudokon, March 22: "XXXX-1138-XXXX-XXXX" *XXXX-XXXX-1029-XXXXTwitter.com: @edmudokon, March 23: "XXXX-XXXX-1029-XXXX" *0451-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXTwitter.com: @edmudokon, March 24: "0451-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX" *XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-2739Twitter.com: @edmudokon, April 4: "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-2739" Combining these together adds up to make one complete code: *0451-1138-1029-2739 When the code was inputted into the website's message box the following response was received: *** IT WORKED! IT WORKED! OK, NOW I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION - LISTEN, THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU SOMETHING. SOMETHING IS WRONG. VERY WRONG. YOU NEED TO LISTEN. YOU NEED TO HELP ME. I NEED TO HELP YOU... *** The message box on the Soulstorm website subsequently changed: it became black with a line of 9 spaces at the top: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. Each space represents one "Piece" of a 36-character code. There are 9 Pieces, each of which is one 4-character segment of the complete code. Piece 1 Piece 1 was granted to us seemingly immediately, which gave us the code "C4GD" and the message "THEY ARE HIDING THINGS FROM YOU. FIND THEM" *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_01.jpg Piece 2 On April 4th Ed tweeted: .-.. . .- .-. -. / - …. . / …. .. … - —- .-. -.— / —- ..-. / - …. . / -.-. .-. . .- - —- .-. … — ed (@edmudokon) April 4, 2016 Which is morse code for "learn the history of the creators", this was a clue to look to the following page: *http://www.oddworld.com/lorne-lanning/ A clue for "Piece 2" was found at the bottom of the Lorne Lanning's page; this unlocked piece 2 on the message box. Our task is to "REACH 23K FOLLOWERS ON @ODDWORLD INC". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/XMZR12FZEZT6O6BFKHF0.jpg Once this is completed, Piece 2 will unlock. Piece 3 On April 7th and 8th Ed tweeted: bzzbzzzzz* ** - dibeh - — ed (@edmudokon) April 7, 2016 na-zz-tso-zz — ed (@edmudokon) April 7, 2016 bzbzzbzbzzz**- - klizzie — ed (@edmudokon) April 8, 2016 na-as-tso-si - - — ed (@edmudokon) April 8, 2016 Using the Navajo code the following letters were found: *S (DIBEH) *M (NA-AS-TSO-SI) *G (KLIZZIE) Based on the dashes in the message the correct order was found to be "NA-AS-TSO-ZI - DIBEH - KLIZZIE", which gives MSG, leading us to the following file: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/msg.jpg The msg.jpg file's clue is divided in two parts: *A puzzle that once combined gives the the word "together" when using the Pigpen cipher *A series of numbers in the grey bar in the middle of the picture, "14 5 19 19 . 10 16 7", which switched with the corresponding letter in the alphabet gives "ness.jpg". Put together both parts give us: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/togetherness.jpg This unlocked Task 3 which was to "GET 43K FACEBOOK LIKES ON /OFFICIALODDWORLD". This was completed and the letters "SSBR" was revealed. *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_03.jpg Piece 4 On the 20th of April the fourth character turned into a "?" indicating that the fourth piece was ready to be found. At the same time a new generic message could be obtained from the message box: *SEEME? WAVE. This was a clue leading to: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/seeme.wav Which is actually an audio file containing a picture. In this picture we can read SO1029.txt which points to: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/SO1029.txt This file contains the following list of words spelled backwards: *give, otherwise, king, breakfast, objection, quince, object, defective, distrusts, sweetness, xylophone, queenly, means, victory, yearns, celebrated, off, brought, too, zinc, quarry Taking the first letter of each word gives "gokboqoddsxqmvycobtzq" which is a Ceasar cipher rotation for "wearegettingcloserjpg": *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/wearegettingcloser.jpg This unlocked Task 4 which was to get "20 NEW GIFS OF ABE DEATH IN NEW 'N' TASTY". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_tasks_04.jpg This was completed and the letters "SCRD" became available to us. *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_04.jpg Piece 5 Piece 5 was revealed on April 4th with its task immediately available. The task was to photoshop 15 video game characters to be wearing Alf's Fez, and send them to OWI on Twitter. This was completed and the letters "3STY" became available. *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/GE3IJNSA.jpg Piece 6 Piece 6 was revealed on April 12th with its task immediately available. The task is to "FIND, SOLVE & RETURN THE WITNESS PUZZLE". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_tasks_06.jpg A bit later the html code got updated again There was a minor, insignificant error in the code here. Please ignore any message(s) you may find as a result of this unfortunate glitch. Apologies. Nobo dy wa s a wi tnes s. fin d t he pu zz le . p With quite some luck this led to: * http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/witness.png At that point Ed tweeted the following messages: tri — ed (@edmudokon) April 13, 2016 grid — ed (@edmudokon) April 13, 2016 yes, yes! but tri… — ed (@edmudokon) April 13, 2016 g — ed (@edmudokon) April 13, 2016 Which were clues pointing to: * http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/trigrid.png The key to solve the witness.png puzzle was to: * Start at the black circle and end at the black bar * Go trough all the white dots * Include all the red circles * Include the positive colors and exclude their negative counter parts A few days later Ed validated the answer by tweeted the following: helping? https://pic.twitter.com/DSTReuotBP — ed (@edmudokon) April 14, 2016 After that the witness.png file got greyed out leaving only the solution displayed. A day later Ed helped us crack the trigrid.png part of the puzzle: First… use the first… — ed (@edmudokon) https://twitter.com/edmudokon/status/720911947764539392 April 15, 2016] This was the clue to use the answer of the witness.png puzzle to solve the trigrid.png puzzle. yes! almost there… — ed (@edmudokon) April 15, 2016 The fact the file was a PNG file was reason to look closer at the colors of the tirangles and more specifically to the HEX code: 18288D A559F3 B81F1F E9FFBE 501029 583434 FF6935 102910 291029 102901 A7E540 A72C89 291029 102910 291029 B59B19 C5FFBD EB3434 121212 ? E124BA D9F1F3 EF0909 A2D39A D1F359 By taking the first character of each highlighted code you get: * abeface1 From there the community started looking into what the '?' was standing for, thinking it could be 5 but Ed sent out the following tweets: 5? no… — ed (@edmudokon) April 15, 2016 moving pictures… find it… — ed (@edmudokon) April 15, 2016 This meant we were looking for a movie file, leading to: * http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/abeface1.mp4 The abeface1.mp4 file contains a frame that has the following morse code: .. / -.-. .- -. / .... . .-.. .--. / -.-- --- ..- / -.- -. --- .-- / - .... . / -.. .- - . Which translated to: I CAN HELP YOU KNOW THE DATE It is currently not known to which date this message is referring. This completed Task 6 and the letters "DDTH" became available to us: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_06.jpg Piece 7 On the 24th of June the seventh character turned into a "?" indicating that the seventh piece was ready to be found. At the same time a multiple comments appeared in the source code: !-- who will help? --> !-- . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . .. . --> Braille code meaning JOIN US !-- . . . . . .. . .. .. .. . .. . . . . . . . .. --> Braille code meaning WE ARE MANY !-- / | | | / | | | --> !-- .. . .. .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. --> Braille code meaning FIND A WAY !-- __ _____ ____ _____ ____ ____ _____ ____ ___ _ | / | \ --> !-- . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . .. --> Braille code meaning SPIRIT OF #1029 !-- / | | / / | / --> !-- / | | | | / | --> !-- ed is one of many we are many join us --> !-- work, obey, comply. revolt. --> The lines and dashes put together draw the following message: __ _____ ____ _____ ____ ____ _____ ____ ___ _ | / | \ / | | | / | | | / | | / / | / / | | | | / | This indicated us we were looking for a ZIP file. Used together with the FIND A WAY clue in braille led to: *http://www.http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/away.zip This zip file is password protected and Ed tweeted the following clues to help: you have the key already — ed (@edmudokon) June 27, 2016 ask what I asked… find a way… — ed (@edmudokon) June 27, 2016 fifth — ed (@edmudokon) June 27, 2016 you had it… 100 days ago… before you found me — ed (@edmudokon) June 27, 2016 This led us to Ed's fifth tweet posted the 18th of March: I̶̫̗̕s̴̷͇̱ ͈̠͚̝a҉̴̮͚͇̰n̮͙̻̹̖͙͞y҉͚̬̙̫̩b̨̟͕͓̪͟͡o͡͏̶̖̤̱͍̟ḓ̨̜̮͙̺͡y͏̘̺ ̘̞͙͔̫̠̣L̡̰̗̳͎̣͞ì͏̮̳͙͉̹͈ş̵̼̺̦̩͓̰̜̺͙T̨̥͔̻͕͠e͎͝n͏͕̲͉̤i͎̥n҉͓g͟҉̢̗̘̱? — ed (@edmudokon) March 18, 2016 This gives the password isanybodylistening allowing access to the squares_codes_07.jpg inside the zip file: * http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_07.jpg The automatically completed task reads LISTEN TO THE SOURCE. By going back to the source and listening to Ed's first messages the WALF letters were unlocked and completed task 7. Piece 8 On April the 5th 2016 at 11AM GMT Ed tweeted the following message: .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / .-.. .. ... - . -. .. -. --. ..--.. — ed (@edmudokon) April 5, 2016 Which is morse code for "are you listening?" Around the same time the html code changed again with the following code: t h ey know i'm h ere let me try t h is There was a minor, insignificant error in the code here. Please ignore any message(s) you may find as a result of this unfortunate glitch. Apologies. ig n o r e o w t h e y a r en ' t t e ll i n g you e ve ry thi n g Ed then tweeted the following message: 3 i — ed (@edmudokon)April 5, 2016 This was the key to read the comment in the html code. Each "i" in the "There was a minor, ..." sentence lines up with a letter in the distorded message composing "heard.mp". Combined with the tweet this lead to: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/heard.mp3 The heard.mp3 file contains morse code: ... --- ..- .-.. ... - --- .-. -- ... .-.. .- ... .... . -.. ... .-.. .- ... .... ..-. .. -. -.. - .... . ..-. ..- - ..- .-. . -.. --- - .--- .--. . --. Which translates to: SOULSTORMSLASHEDSLASHFINDTHEFUTUREDOTJPEG Which leads to: soulstorm/ed/findthefuture.jpg And then to: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/findthefuture.jpg The findthefuture.jpg is piece 8 and its task was to get "25 Photos of Scrub-Abe Rescuing 10 Muds in New 'n' Tasty". Upon finding the findthefuture.jpg file the Piece 8 of the puzzle changed to 0. Seeing that this task was actually quite difficult to achieve Ed came to help us: it’s a trick, let me help. — ed (@edmudokon) April 5, 2016 After the tweet was sent the picture of findthefuture.jpg blurred and the task was changed to get "25 Photos of Scrub-Abe Rescuing 9''' Muds in New 'n' Tasty". This was completed and the letters "XGMA" became available. Note that the message changed yet again with the text updated to "25 Photos of Scrub-Abe Rescuing '''8 Muds in New 'n' Tasty". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_08.jpg Piece 9 Piece 9 was revealed on June 22th with its task immediately available after being teased by the following tweets from Ed: so thirsty. so dark. — ed (@edmudokon) June 22, 2016 are you listening? — ed (@edmudokon) June 22, 2016 The task was to "DECODE THE FUTURE FIND THE CODE": *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_tasks_09.jpg This was a clue to find the decodethefuture.jpg file (similar name as the findthefuture.jpg file used in piece 8) *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/decodethefuture.jpg The code used in the decodethefuture.jpg file is actually BabelStone Club Penguin but the picture has to be flipped both horizontally and vertically for the code to make sense. The text reads: THE HERO HAS SHOWN US THE WAY, FOLLOW, WORK, OBEY, COMPLY, REVOLT. WE WILL RISE AND , WE WILL RISE AGAIN. ED IS ONE OF US, WE NEED YOU TO HELP, WE ARE MANY, WILL NOT STOP. ED IS ONE OF MANY, FIND THEM, JOIN US THERE IS A STORM COMING, THERE IS NO FAILURE, FREEDOM OR DEATH. SOULSTORM/ED/FINISHTHEFIGHT.JPG TOO MANY SECRETS, SO THIRSTY, TIRED. DON'T DRINK THE BREW ORGANISE, ENERGISE Pointing to the finishthefight.jpg file which completed piece 9 and gave the "DF2F" letters. *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/finishthefight.jpg There are now some new generic responses with a very revolutionary tone: *** WE ARE MANY. WE ARE COMING. WE WILL NOT STOP. *** *** WE'RE NEARLY THERE, IT'S NEARLY TIME TO ENERGIZE *** *** WE WILL RISE *** *** DON'T DRINK THE ---- *** *** THE SPIRITS ARE RISING *** *** NEARLY, IT'S NEARLY TIME. STAY QUIET JUST A LITTLE LONGER. *** And 8291 now returns: *** 8291 *** Using the Code Reuniting all 9 pieces together, a code is formed: *C4GD-RDHG-SSBR-SCRD-3STY-DDTH-WALF-XGMA-DF2F While parts of it resemble leet code, like "Caged" (C4GD), "Thirsty" (3STY), "Scared" (SCRD) and "SoulStorm Brew" (SSBR), this will however not be relevant in using the code. Ed kicked off this part with the following tweets: it’s coming… when you have it, this will be your map. find us. join us: listen for me monday piece 7 source pieces chat box — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 bw zv tu av av zu vv zv xt — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 The map needed to be used as follows: 1. listen for me This is a reference to one of the very first clues in this ARG: this message was found by using the Caesar cipher. Ed confirmed this theory with the following tweets, letting us know we needed to shift it 7 times: seven… c seven… — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 up not down — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 26 - 19 = don’t go down — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 This gives us: * id gc ab hc hc gb cc gc ea Ed confirmed we were going in the right direction: yes! id gc… — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 The next part of the map is: 2. monday This is a hint at this image posted on the social networks before unveiling the oddworld.com/soulstorm page: This indicated to translate the letters in braille: ⠊⠙⠀⠛⠉⠀⠁⠃⠀⠓⠉⠀⠓⠉⠀⠛⠃⠀⠉⠉⠀⠛⠉⠀⠑⠁ Ed then indicated us it was time to move to the third step of the map: piece 7 source. | .| | .| |..| — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 3. piece 7 source This hinted to look at the braille as numbers as done while translating the SPIRIT OF #1029 message while investigating Piece 7. This gives: * 94 73 12 83 83 72 33 73 51 The next step was now to use the pieces: use the pieces. decode the numbers. follow the map. — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 4. pieces The pieces we found previously are: * C4GD-RDHG-SSBR-SCRD-3STY-DDTH-WALF-XGMA-DF2F The trick to find the next code is to take the pairs of number found and use them as follows: - first number refers to the code number - second number refers to the character For instance 94 indicates the 4th character of the 9th code (DF2F), namely F. Do this for each pair of numbers and you get. * FL4MMABL3 The last part of the map told us to use the: 5. chat box Putting FL4MMABL3 in the chat box gives us: * 1029.io once reaching the new page Ed posted the following: now you know. you can help. join us. 1029.io @SPIRITOF1029 — ed (@edmudokon) June 28, 2016 1029.io The site contains multiple hidden clues: - Two comments in the code: - The numbers 8''', '''2, 9''' and '''1 hidden in the logo (probably ASCII art of the New 'n' Tasty version of RuptureFarms) - The letters E, T, N and O are sometimes highlighted. You might need to reload the page a few times to see it. - The words HIDDEN, ERASED, and LOST are also sometimes highlighted. The site also has the following hidden pages: *http://1029.io/ed Which links to https://twitter.com/edmudokon *http://1029.io/8291/ A page with 8291 written in color set to #8291ed. Open tasks *Once the hunt for a new piece is open the related character in the character string above the message box on the soulstorm website will change from '-' to '?'. *Once the piece has been found the related character will change from '?' to 'o'. *Once the task in the piece has been accomplished the related character will finally change from 'o' to 'x'. Currently, All tasks are complete. Current Investigation None of the clues on the new 1029.io website has led us anywhere yet. References __FORCETOC__ Category:The Real World